Abstract

Some critics believe that love à la mode is simply a theatrical convention. However, the possibility remains that conventional notions of love and this new conception of relations between man and woman, whose focus was power rather than sentiment or sexual desire, existed side-by-side in seventeenth-century reality. Thus, whilst it is true that Mañanas de abril y mayo is a playful comedy, full of comical instances, whose tangled plot is founded on the contrast between these two types of relations, it is also true that the play is a sign of its times and as such channels the hierarchical conflicts between the men and women in the Spanish Golden Age. A study of the views expressed by contemporary moralists reveals concerns about female behavior that are manifested in the comedy in the free and outspoken characterization of doña Clara. Her scornful disregard for the demands of her lover, and her desire to make him suffer, testify to a feminine desire and determination concern to have the power to choose her own destiny in marriage. In the midst of all the fun generated by jokes, puns, witticisms, and a rapid succession of entrances and exits, concealments and discoveries, therefore, it is possible to observe an underlying conflict which the playwright leaves unresolved.